Thread: Minister of Conservation

Originally Posted by Tahr

All you had to do to be in on that well organised cull you quoted was to go to your local nzda meeting. Are you a member?

Nope have tried contacting Canty NZDA 3 times never received a reply about how to join

Originally Posted by Carbine

Nope have tried contacting Canty NZDA 3 times never received a reply about how to join

Seems a pretty common theme from some branches of the NZDA and creates the impression of a 'boys club'.
The cull in Lake Sumner RHA was inefficient and in today's language had a pretty big carbon footprint. A R22 and an experinced crew could have done the same thing in a couple of hours. The foot cull that went on won't work long term and should be done properly and efficiently from the start otherwise recreational hunters are setting themselves up to have egg on their face again.

Originally Posted by Carbine

Nope have tried contacting Canty NZDA 3 times never received a reply about how to join

Since I moved South I pay my dues etc through Head Office. Much easier ... If you have any questions, contact us at membership@deerstalkers.org.nz or call at +64 4-499 6163.

Originally Posted by Carbine

Nope have tried contacting Canty NZDA 3 times never received a reply about how to join

I copied this off google. There is a phone number. Hope that works for you.

New Zealand Deerstalkers Association - North Canterbury Branch
Website
Directions
Save
5.0
3 Google reviews
Hunting club in Christchurch
Address: 599 McLeans Island Road, McLeans Island, Christchurch 8051
Phone: 021 961 050

There does seem to be a real problem with the deerstalkers system or database.
Ive joined twice in last 7 years or so. Both times I received an initial newsletter and confirmation. yet after that not a single piece of correspondence. Not even a reminder to pay subs a year later. When I contacted the waikato deerstalkers about it, they had no record of me being a member despite me stipulating that to be my local branch.

Originally Posted by whanahuia

There does seem to be a real problem with the deerstalkers system or database.
Ive joined twice in last 7 years or so. Both times I received an initial newsletter and confirmation. yet after that not a single piece of correspondence. Not even a reminder to pay subs a year later. When I contacted the waikato deerstalkers about it, they had no record of me being a member despite me stipulating that to be my local branch.

Under the new CEO they seem to be getting their shit together with invoicing and most things really. As you say there was plenty of room for improvement. Im not an apologist for them, and Ive been a member for 50 years. Fortunately they now seem to have dragged themselves from being a club to being an organisation, but it has taken far too long in my view.

Originally Posted by Carbine

Nope have tried contacting Canty NZDA 3 times never received a reply about how to join

Took me a good 20 seconds to find...

https://nzdacanterbury.org/why-join/

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

Seems a pretty common theme from some branches of the NZDA and creates the impression of a 'boys club'.
The cull in Lake Sumner RHA was inefficient and in today's language had a pretty big carbon footprint. A R22 and an experinced crew could have done the same thing in a couple of hours. The foot cull that went on won't work long term and should be done properly and efficiently from the start otherwise recreational hunters are setting themselves up to have egg on their face again.

Was inefficient with a large carbon footprint?
As far as recreational hunting goes all fly in hunting trips will have a carbon footprint that is reasonably large. So what is the difference between flying in and shooting perhaps 1 trophy animal vs flying in and shooting every hind you see. Has the same carbon footprint but one has better outcomes for conservation.

So while you are at it you may as well get ahold of the Sika foundation and tell them their management hunts are inefficient and have a large carbon footprint.
You are clearly missing the whole point, at least with hunters taking the lead certain animals get targeted with little cost to the taxpayer.
You obviously have little idea how much it costs to get professional cullers in to do the job, I can assure you it isn't cheap.
I also don't think anyone is kidding themselves and genuinely believe recreational hunters can solely handle the situation. Hence why the likes of the Sika foundation are also getting a helicopter in to do culling as well followed by professional ground hunters.
The whole point is that hunters are trying and they are actively contributing, if you can't see that then it has obviously gone way over your head.

very good article in latest NZHunter mag about the access issue leading to high pockets of population.....its a well balanced read.
the other weird/stuffed up part of access is a waro help can land to process animals etc but cannot land to drop of recreational hunters WITHOUT a DOC permit..... dumb and short sighted.... never been up onto tops around haast,but if could hitch a cheap ride up to top of hill with help going there anyway for a couple of hundy bucks would be in like Flynn.... then hunt my way down to flats etc.....

A lot of jet fuel was burnt to get those hunters in and out of there and it will take a lot more of those operations to sort the issue in there.
And I do know how much professional cullers cost, I was one for 14 years.I could ring a heli operator right now who would do the same job for $700 plus ammo/ hour. There is a couple more that would probably do it cheaper. Pretty simple, shoot hinds and hinds only and spread the effort over the entire RHA by not wiping out whole family groups. The RHA needs a lot more culled than what was shot, probably 500 odd but that's an educated guess.
And by the way it doesn't worry me how big or little the carbon footprint was it's just that some do get rather sensitive about sort of thing nowadays.

$700 per hour!!!!!!!! you must have very fuel efficent machine,or its pedal powered LOL.... shocked to see 91 octane at over the $3 mark yesterday, diesel still creeping upwards,cant imagine avgas of whatever grade will be far behind it.....
we can all agree a good operator in good machine is the ultimate control tool in open country...the trick is to find one who doesnt get greedy and will leave the right animals so as to encourage recreational hunting.
funny how the wheel turns...the NZFS was actively encouraged to put in tracks n huts to get folks out into back country..... thats WHY the plurry things were built,DOC over last 30 years has progressively done less n less to maintain them (no blame or finger pointing,it is what it is) and now folks calling to upgrade these to get people back out there again....access is still an issue in places and also the country beside public land which holds bigger numbers and is closed off/locked up and actively /agressively policed to keep folks off...and even in some cases to try to keep folks away from country they are legally allowed in.....
its like the possum issue...if spotlighting and rimfires were ok..there wouldnt be many possums anywhere close to roads anymore....heck its a whole lot of hoops to jump through to trap or poison them on public land now.... ticket clippers.. I need say no more.

Might be out of date with the 700/hrs rate with the recent fuel rices but the point is a r22/cabri type are cheap and do the
same job as a bigger machine if you are not lifting anything.

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

Might be out of date with the 700/hrs rate with the recent fuel rices but the point is a r22/cabri type are cheap and do the
same job as a bigger machine if you are not lifting anything.

Yeah well out of touch. I might be wrong but can DoC contractors even use Robinson helicopters anymore?
Be a 500 at a damn sight more than what you quoted.
Yeah it does need more shot, I don't think the NZDA or anyone else would argue with that, but it was a start and a start showing that hunters are prepared to have deer culled and would be happy to help if they could. Simple as that.
And with the latest budget that was announced there will be plenty more government funded shooting going on in the future no doubt.

correct,no Robbies for DOC contractors anymore.....could possibly be worked around by subbing out to 3rd party EG;NZDA???

It's good to see this thread steered away from politics to an actual hunting issue. I was waiting for a thread on the RHA cull, so I guess this will have to do. Finding it very surprising how many hunters are so keen on this, and how many more are keen to see choppers in there culling. The only justification I saw for the cull was "reports of damage to vegetation", and then some clown banging on about how the cull was "scientific and objective". I hunt the area a few times a year, mainly when I need to fill the freezer, and have not seen significant damage to vegetation caused by deer. Often find kea damage, and some pig rooting in places, but that is about all. It is a huge area with a pretty solid population, as stated above 127 hinds will make almost 0 difference. And, was it actually needed? Well, no one knows, at least that I have seen, as nobody knows the population density, or the population density that the area can sustain, or the natural attrition rate, or hunting harvest, or the reproduction rate etc. There was no science or objectivity to the cull, it was purely marketing. I would have much preferred to see an actual study on the effects of deer on the area, and a target population density with upper and lower bounds, and some way to measure it, and control it if necessary. We should be leading the way on that, not just culling because we think that is what the greenies want us to do. Here is a paper from 1989 suggesting a similar idea https://newzealandecology.org/nzje/1835.

The RHAs specifically exclude WARO, so anyone advocating for this (whether commercial or for charity) has a screw loose in my opinion. The lake sumner area is pretty close to the perfect hunting location, it has amazing scenery, pretty easy access, good animal numbers, and no WARO. Unless you can produce some actual science as to why animal numbers need reducing, by how much, and why choppers are the only way to achieve that, the people advocating for the removal of the last two can piss right off.